In The News

Team UK triumphed at WorldSkills, picking up no less than 20 medals, 1 gold, 3 silver, 3 bronze and 13 medallions of excellence at a spectacular closing ceremony in front of 15,000 people and the World’s media at the Ad Du Arena. Team UK finished 10th in the medals table ahead of Germany and was the smallest team to make the global top 10.

York College is delighted for apprentice Archie Stoke-Faiers who won the silver medal in Architectural Stonemasonry in Abu Dhabi. Archie, aged 22 from Devon, spent hours in the run up to the ‘skills Olympics’ training in the College’s stonemasonry workshop, coached by Kevin Calpin, a World Skills Manager and former tutor at York College.

Further congratulations to Medals of Excellence winners; Josh Hunter in Bricklaying (from Hull), trained by World Skills Manager Mike Burdett (a bricklaying tutor at York College) and Jordan Charters in Painting and Decorating (from Scotland)– both apprentices trained at the York College Construction Centre just days before flying out to Abu Dhabi.

Dr. Neil Bentley, CEO of WorldSkills UK said: “These young people have done the nation proud. If we celebrate Team UK’s success and use it to inspire others to follow in their footsteps - the future of the UK is in safe hands.“

Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills, Anne Milton MP, visited the competition, commented: ”I have been blown away by Team UK. They have done fantastically well – this is the UK competing on the World stage for skills and achieving great things. WorldSkills UK is doing a fantastic job supporting these young people – with thousands of hours of input. We need to put all that they are doing - the ethos of this competition, the spirit of these apprentices- into a bottle and sprinkle it across the UK.”

Having triumphed through regional heats, a national final, a Team UK selection process and months of intensive training, 34 young apprentices (or former apprentices) – completed 4 days of competition at the 44th WorldSkills Finals on Sunday (October 15th).

Team UK is supported by WorldSkills UK, which has pioneered techniques and methodology from elite sports training which have been honed to help produce the very best exponents of dozens of disciplines and trades.